Hello again, whats is the average charge for a half an hour lesson, i am in cambridgeshire and chrage £9 per 30 mins. I have kept this low as i am relatively knew to the teaching scene and whilst i hold a degree in Music i never finished my grades, although i intend too, so im currently teaching beginners, thnku

I'm on the outskirts of London, charge is currently £14 per 30 minutes.

My flute teacher charges £12 for a half-hour lesson, at his house (if that helps!) which is on the outskirts of Manchester.

Really depends on area, level of expertise and instrument, but you seem on the rather cheap side I would say.

There were lots of threads about it in the past, a forum search will probably give you quite a few results ...

Out of curiosity, do people charge more for teaching higher grades? I don't mean for longer lessons, but for higher exam grades, and if so, where does it change? (Grade 6, post-grade 8, post-diploma, or what?)

I used to do private tuition for GCSE/A level maths, and I travelled to the students' houses.
I charged:
?12 - half an hour of entrance exam tuition (typical age of student = 9-10 years old)
?20 - an hour of GCSE maths tuition (I would provide exam papers and mark them for the students)
?25 - an hour of A level maths tuition (as above for exam papers)
?30 - an hour of AEA/STEP/Oxford entrance exam tuition or Oxbridge interview preparation.

Apologies for hi-jacking the thread, but I was intrigued by whether this approach holds for music tuition as well - a lot of private "school subject" tutors do it!

I'm the same as Maggiemay, but round here there are lots of teachers who charge more, up to £17.50 in the case of a good violin teacher who performs locally regularly. I'd say your charges may be a little bit light, given that you have a degree in music.

Hello,

We are in North Yorks and pay £10 for a half hour paino lesson at teacher's studio and £15 for a 45 min guitar lesson at our home. I also travel into Leeds city centre for my clarinet lesson, which is £35 for an hour. From what others have said, I think £10 per half hour would still make you very reasonable!

I'm on the outskirts of London and pay my children's piano teacher £15 per half-hour lesson. I pay my clarinet teacher £25 for an hour, which I think is very reasonable.

We pay £10 per half hour - my brother has a half hour lesson, I have 45 minutes. (Piano)

I charge £12.75 per half hour and I live in Manchester, if that helps! At uni my clarinet teacher charged me £30 an hour but this was "mate's rates". I don't know what she usually charged.

I'm in the North East and charge £10 for 30 mins, £15 for 45 mins.

thanks very much for all your replies, i guess im a little hesitant to charge more than £9 because i havent finished my grades even though im very confident that im doing a good job with the students i have as they are progressing well, as i said before i do hold a music degree, i just would never want to charge more than people would consider im worth, think im probably just lacking in confidence at the mo, maybe i will put upto £10 in the new year as im cheaper than everyone it seems!!

£25 an hour, North of England.

In Bristol our various lessons vary between £6 per half hour (recorder) and £16 per half hour (cello).

Where I am in London considerably more, £40-£50 per hour is not unreasonable. Having said that the teachers I'm talking about are nationally/internationally recognised performers.

For me, just outside of central london, it is ?30 per hour. Thats very good considering all the travelling he does to get to my house.

My teacher is not famous but has played as a soloist in some big venues and with some well known orchetsras/chamber groups.

I'm also in Cambridgeshire and I currently charge £11 per half hour. I've been teaching for 2 and a half years since getting my music degree. I started charging £10 and have been increasing by 50p per half hour each September to gradually bring me in line with other local teachers. Until now, I have been the cheapest I've known of in the area and I think £12/13 is more normal here.

Sarah

I pay £10.50 per half hour, my piano teacher comes to the house, he is a well respected local musician and a really nice guy! And he's asked me to do the tenor solos for a bring and sing Messiah he's organising next week.

I charge £12 for 30 minutes practical tuition for both violin and piano. If people want theory as well then I do a slightly cheaper rate of £16 for 45 minutes.

You do seem to be a little on the light side - the suggestion of raising fees by 50p each year seems to be a good one. That way, it won't be a massive hike for your pupils. I would also suggest that you get them to pay by the half term in advance. This will cut down on the amount of trips to the bank and your admin.

Given that you have a music degree you are more than qualified to teach - so be confident in your abilities and do charge accordingly. If you're too cheap then some may actually be put off by it - wondering what the catch is!

Good luck with your teaching career.

I would say your degree trumps the grades! I presume that if you're teaching and have a degree you're playing at a decent level. Price yourself at a good level now, otherwise you will spend years playing catch-up or eventually have to throw a big hike in fees to your pupils which can be more hassle and more nerve racking than asking to be paid properly in the first place.

Don't sell yourself short!

It depends on how good a teacher you are, your instrument and your location.

I'm based in Nottingham, I'd say I'm an accomplished teacher and I teach classical guitar, £10 for half an hour is about average which is what I charge.

My piano teacher, also based in Nottingham has all sorts of degrees and qualifications, is an excellent teacher but lacks experience and she charges the same.

I've known lessons to be as much as £100 for half an hour though. It all depends on who is teaching you and where.

For that I would expect Alfred Brendel to do a home visit!

Not home visits, but that's the kind of thing I'm talking about.

To answer another question a few posts back - my charges are the same whether I'm teaching a beginner or diploma standard. My expertise is the same, it took me the same amount of money and the same number of years to achieve. People think that you can do no harm teaching beginners - wrong! That's when you need to know exactly what you are doing. You'll find out when you get pupils from other teachers who haven't taught correct technique and you have to put it right!
To Annabanna - I also think you are a bit light, given that you have a music degree. Don't undercut yourself or teachers in your area with similar qualifications and experience. Likewise, increasing your fees by 50p on an annual basis will only play catch up if other teachers' fees stand still. They won't, and because their fees are higher, their increases will be higher, too. Mine went up by £1 per 45 minutes the last two years. So you see your gap will widen. Best to take the plunge now and charge the going rate. I didn't, and was forced to make an increase of £3 per hour in one go. I was so worried about it, but it had to be done. Luckily no-one batted an eyelid.

This is a survey the ISM did on private tuition fees: Private tuition fees

It says a bit about regional variations and variation according to experince. Useful stuff!

Remembering, of course, that the fees quoted are two years out of date!

Around 1840 Chopin was charging 20 Francs per lesson (of between 30 and 40 minutes). The 20 Franc coin (the Napoleon) was about a quarter ounce of Gold, worth about 170 GBP at current prices.

Let us do some hypothetical sums using easy figures. At 5 students a day, for (say) 200 days a year, that is a gross annual income of 170,000!!

To that you must add his [substantial] income from sales of his music to publishers.

Thanks Mad Tom, that's really interesting! I think I'd gladly pay £170 for a lesson with Chopin. Bargain!

So would I. But would you pay it every week ... (6,800 worth of lessons in a 40 week teaching year)?

I pay £8.00 per half hour for son's piano, £14 per half hour for mine and £10 per half hour for sax - sax teacher worked professionally and was taught by Richard Ingham, and £14 an hour teacher is also a professional player. £8.00 an hour teacher has all her grades. I'd say you are charging about right with £9.00 per half hour.

It depends on what you're teaching, your results and how well known you are where I am - very little publicity is done so people tend to get referred to teachers and arrive knowing how much it will cost, but also that they're likely to get what they pay for as it's a recommendation from one or more people.

I charge 60 per hour in my home town, 80 in Paris and more for emergency call-outs to studios, theatres, voice clinics and things.

My own teacher (although we don't really have lessons together anymore) charged more than double that. I would have payed more happily (although I may have had to see him less frequently!).

I'd say the best thing to do is look at people teaching at a similar level, getting similar results to you (don't worry about the grades - no one cares about those in the real world - your degree is worth much more) - and charge the same fee.

I agree with others on here that reducing your fees as you're new to teaching just undermines the local market and sets you up for a fall when you eventually do increase your rates. Do it now and get it over with - you'll probably lose some pupils, but you'll get others. If others in your area are charging, say 30, for a similar level of service to you then I'd charge the same fee.

I think it's very important as music teachers not to feel embarassed by asking for money - as musicians we're often artistic sorts and easily pushed about on the business side of things. I'd do a course in business admin and get yourself set-up with some solid skills. Like AnnC said, you worked hard and paid a lot to get where you are - it doesn't matter who you're teaching, your fee should be the same and you should never feel embarassed to charge it.

It's easy for people to forget that out of, say, 30 an hour - once you've paid your NI, tax and operating costs, there's probably not a great deal more than half left over. People often have the odd notion that music is free and 'for the people' - certainly as an art form it is and we should all be free to appreciate it (that's why free or cheap concerts, television and radio are great things) - but taking lessons from a good, qualified, reputable teacher is not a right - it's a luxury item that one chooses to buy - therefore it comes at a (fair) price. It's important that we don't confuse the right to appreciate music freely and the choice to take individual lessons with a good teacher.

Do a bit of research on the local market, then make the switch as cleanly as possible.

??

18/hr x a realistic maximum 1500 teaching hours per year = at best 27,000 Gross.

It is better than the national average, but it isn't going to make anyone rich. And in most of the country it won't command a large enough mortgage to buy somewhere to live.

.

I know. I was making optimistic assumptions about annual teaching hours to show that even if you are pretty well fully occupied, and charging what most people think is a fair rate that it is still not a fabulous income.

It is sad. Our society has topsy-turvy priorities.

Your post states the realities very clearly.

FWIW, I have a lesson every two weeks which costs 50 Euros. It is nominally meant to be an hour and a half, so if we finished on time that would work out at about 34 Euros per hour, [approx 30 pounds per hour] but it is advanced stuff and intense work and well worth it. But my teacher is, like most music teachers, more interested in her students and in music than in money, and in reality the lessons rarely last less than two hours, and have been known to go on for closer to three.

I charge £25 for an hour, and for shorter lessons, charge pro rata. I charge the going rate for my area, which is in Hertofordshire. I also think that if you have a degree in music, and are proficient in your instrument, then charge the professional rate. If you under charge, it is unfair on other teachers in your area.

I'm in London and charge 15.00 for half hour piano lesson.

OK I'm cheap!

I have a degree in German from a good University, a diploma in librarianship and am also a chartered librarian. I would love to earn that much! But then, perhaps that's why I think the amount I pay for music lessons is realistic - I can't afford to pay any more.

.

I manage to earn quite a decent amount from purely private teaching (usually between 25-30 K a year). I DO think I am unusual amongst music teachers though. It's not just because I work very long hours and don't take school holidays, it's because I am quite hard headed in a business way. I sometimes read in amazement on this forum about people giving extra time free, free lessons, having breaks to eat their evening meal in etc. I applaud it in a way, but it's not then surprising if many teachers live on the bread line. I can't afford to be like that - I earn far more than my partner and I am keeping a roof over our heads. Most clients respect and accept that - I'm not just doing it for a bit of pin money - my earnings are very important to maintaining our life style. A lot of musicians are not business people.

completely agree, ma non troppo. part of it is certainly in our own hands, but not all. i am quite hard-nosed on the business-side of things as well.
i only know that i have to work roundabout 45 to 50 hours to pay myself a monthly cheque of £1.500 - not all of this time is contact/teaching time. very often, the amount i actually can pay myself is reasonably smaller.

i usually only take two to three weeks off over christmas, no other holidays. however, i simply couldn't teach more than roundabout 25/30 hours without having the feeling that the quality of my teaching suffers. i owe my students to be mentally sane and well prepared. i don't think they should have the feeling that my own singing is not up to scratch either

if other people can teach 40 or 50 hours solid AND still keep an eye on lesson preparation, their own professional development and do all their admin work themselves, i'd really like to know their secret. probably they'll work 80 hours a week then. of course possible, but not for me. the other alternative would be to teach solid, but let other things drop. not for me either.

off to teach now

I think what upsets people is that some of the most worthless, diepnesible, nasty people in our society get paid, or otherwise receive, enormous, undeserved sums of money.

And the valuable, vital, and/or indispensable are paid relatively little.

Edit: Spelling seems more than usually wayward today!

diepnesible = dispensible

I blame the odd angle of my PC keyboard

Twas ALWAYS thus.....

I am interested in this comment. Do you not feel that it would be beneficial for you to recharge your batteries to work slightly longer hours and allow yourself more holiday? I have read about other people who work through holidays, or only have 4 weeks total holiday, and I don't understand how they can continuously do that.

I need "holidays" to relax and have a break, and to prepare for the next term.

.